Slesinger Family Wins 'Pooh' Copyright Case
 

We were just alking about this on-going case yesterday. The latest ruling is not good news for Disney.

Does this mean they'll tear out the ride? :D

Oh bother!

One can only hope.

Nothing is settled yet, they still have to go through the lawsuit to determine if Disney actually did anything wrong and the Slesingers are entitled to damages.

All this is is confirmation that the Slesingers are still in the game. There are likely years to go still before anything is really settled.

And even if they win, they won't be able to give the Disney version of the characters to another licensee, just the Milne version, which is worth considerably less money.

Ultimately Disney and the Slesingers will just come to a new agreement.

Speaking of $ and Pooh...

Oooh. They may 86 the Pooh ride? Awesome.
:)

Ooh, I just found out our firm represents the Slesinger Family.
:eek:

I'm so confused by this. I was following this case pretty closely till about 2 years ago, when the Schleshinger's case was basically thrown out of court .. and their chances of ultimately prevailing went from 50/50 to practially nill.

I'm going to have to do some research to satisfy my own morbid legal curiosity.

The lawsuit dealt with today technically does not involve Disney. It wsa Milne's granddaughter suing Slesinger to recover the rights to Pooh which, if they won, they would then give directly to Disney.

Essentially, in retaliation, Disney was trying to cut out the Slesinger's altogether.

This was dismissed so the Slesinger claim to various copyrights, trademarks, and marketing licenses is affirmed.

The original suit was dismissed (not for factual reasons but for misconduct tainting the proceeding) and the Slesingers are still appealing that. If they lose those appeals, I'm not clear on whether the Slesingers are barred from starting a new proceeding making similar claims.

If they lose that and the Slesingers lose their appeals then all that happens is Disney continues making millions on Pooh and giving 4% to the Slesingers.

That's my understanding, anyway.